Those are contextual cues, when they’re conscious and visible. The reason I can recall them is that they’re also part of a scene, an autobiographical memory. The science tells us that, at least when it comes to retention of new facts, the subconscious ones are valuable, too. Not always—when we’re submerged in analytical work, they’re negligible—and not necessarily all of them. Only sometimes. So what, though? When it comes to learning, we’ll take any edge we can get.
